Mothers
by AAThanatos
Summary: Nico is having trouble dealing with his memories resurfacing about his mother. Will helps him by sharing his own sad story.


Memories from the Lethe were coming back full force since my return from Tartarus. Sure a lot were great mementoes of my family. My childhood that way actually really happy in Italy. Bianca and I running threw meadows and playing with my mothers vanity. My father and mother laying on the bed laughing at us while Bianca put pearls and makeup on me. The bad came too, my grandparents shaming my mother for having two children out of wedlock. The explosion. My mother dying in front of me. It was as awful as if I had just found out, I guess it kind of was. My mind had been bathed in denial and magic for over 5 years, and just like Bob all it took was a stroll through hell to bring all of that rushing back. Parts of my identity made more sense and others I was still left completely clueless.

Will was great about these days that I felt distant. Reconfirming my past and trying to compartmentalize everything that happened to my sister and I. The worst part was having to do this without her. It's like I feel numb and pain all at the same time, like when your arm falls asleep. Will would bring me food and talk me into showering on those days. Keeping me as up as possible. One day it was just to hard and I couldn't keep the tears down. I just laid in my bed letting my pillowcase soak up all my sadness over my family being gone.

Will came in as he did everyday, and like the wonderful man he was he noticed that today was harder than most. Sitting on the bed he motioned for me to put my arms around his torso and cry into him. I did just that and it took a whole hour of his petting my hair and making calming shushing noises to get me to stop hiccuping.

"This is never going to get easier is it?"

"No, it just gets different."

"How do you know that?"

"Because my mother died."

I looked up at him in shock, we had never really discussed his mother. Will would bring her up in conversation but he made it seem more like she was just away instead of deceased. I was selfish. How could I not have asked him?

"When, How?"

Will made us more comfortable explaining that it was a long story and we needed to get super comfortable if he was going to tell it, but seriously we have been dating for months, how come I'm only hearing this now! Settling on his front I looked up at him from his stomach with my arms on his sides. Wills hands played with my over long hair as he sighed deeply readying himself for his confession.

"My mother and I always had a really strained relationship. My grandmother raised me while my mother went off all over the US touring and doing what she does best, party. Naomi was a young mother, barely out of highschool when she had me. Gods don't seem to care to much about age I guess. I used to make the joke that the longest I've ever lived with my mother was 9 months and it was when I was inside of her. It wasn't that she was a bad person, she wasn't. She was just a bad mom. Some women have that mothering gene in them and my mom just never got it. It wasn't who she was. Most of the mistakes she made as a mom were because she was young, forgetting to feed me, leaving me alone a lot even though I was just a baby. I even hurt myself of a razor she left out because she didn't think that sharp objects shouldn't be left out for toddlers to reach. The final straw was when I ended up on the hospital because she neglected me, that's when grandma told her that she was keeping me and told her to come back for me when she grew up. Well, she never grew up. So I stayed with grandma until it was time to come to camp.

Well two years ago we found out she had a rare genetic form of colon cancer. When she found out she was already in Stage four and there was no treatment for it anymore. It only took a year for her to deteriorate infront of our eyes. I prayed for my father to save her but he told me that she denied his help. Apollo said that my mother didn't want to mess with fate, and I guess she was right. It's dangerous to save someone who wasn't meant to be saved, I have had to learn that lesson over and over again.

The last time she went into the hospital it was on July fourth and she laid there dying for the next seven days. The catheter was the color of carrot juice... I can't get that image out of my mind. My family just gathered around her as she wasted away. The cancer spread all over including her brain so by the end of it she would just look at me and cry. My face didn't really register to her, there is nothing worse than looking at your mother and her not knowing who you are."

Those words haunted me... Hazel..

"On the fourth day she went into a coma. I stayed at the hospital the entire time. I finally went home on day seven so I could get real sleep, my grandma made me. Two hours after I left she died. Part of me was happy I wasn't there. I don't know if I wanted the memory of her not breathing. I loved my mother very much, she loved me to. Not enough, but in the only way she knew how.

The worst days are these, the first time you get sick or hurt badly. All you want is her. My mother would never be there when I was sick or hurt but I could still call her to tell her. She would actually tell me not to come over if I was sick and to stay right where I was. The next hardest day is when you realize that you went the entire day without thinking about her and you hate yourself. After that it's when something really great happens in your life, and you hate her because she should be here to see it! To celebrate with you and tell you how awesome it was. Anger is a big part of it and it only feeds your feeling of feeling selfish. It gets easier to talk about without tears but the pain never really goes away. It just gets different.

So it's ok to feel weird or indifferent or even nothing right now. Everyone reacts differently. Just know that I am here for you and know the place you are coming from."

Silent tears had leaked out of my eyes the entire monologue. My poor Will. I at-least had really happy memories of my mother, he had half happy experiences. Though part of me was jealous because he at-least got to know his mother as a person before she passed, no matter how short her life was. I buried my face in his stomach pressing deep kisses into his abdomen. Hands gripped around me tightly, we were just in the moment of pure understanding. Moments like these didn't come very often and I was going to savor it. Keep the smells and the sounds and the sensations in a tight ball of wonderful in the back of my brain for days like these.

In that moment with this shared pain.. I fell in love with Will Solace.


End file.
